Brian Alfred (b. 1974)

Biography

1997 – BFA, Pennsylvania State University

1999 – MFA, Yale University / Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Brian Alfred was born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, PA. Known for his paintings, collages and animations that examine the ways in which perception of our surroundings and culture is mediated by technology, his works present a flattened, depopulated and predominantly urban world derived from found images. His thematic concerns – including the signifiers of modernist idealism and technological progress, conspiracy theories and the growing prevalence of surveillance in the post-9/11 world – have led him to focus on images featuring architecture, machinery, interiors, urban and suburban landscapes, as well as text. The world as depicted by Alfred is distanced, banal – as in visually unremarkable – yet highly charged with possible meanings.

1999 – MFA, Yale University / Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Brian Alfred was born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, PA. Known for his paintings, collages and animations that examine the ways in which perception of our surroundings and culture is mediated by technology, his works present a flattened, depopulated and predominantly urban world derived from found images. His thematic concerns – including the signifiers of modernist idealism and technological progress, conspiracy theories and the growing prevalence of surveillance in the post-9/11 world – have led him to focus on images featuring architecture, machinery, interiors, urban and suburban landscapes, as well as text. The world as depicted by Alfred is distanced, banal – as in visually unremarkable – yet highly charged with possible meanings.